


Another Life Is Not That Far

by CaptainLeBubbles



Series: Open-Ended Shorts [1]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Brothers, Canon Divergence - Boss Mabel, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-04
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-04-18 04:31:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14205120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainLeBubbles/pseuds/CaptainLeBubbles
Summary: Shermie was just enjoying an episode of Cash Wheel when he saw a familiar face.He would very much like some answers, thank you.





	Another Life Is Not That Far

**Author's Note:**

> I've got a lot of open ended one shots on my blog, so I thought I'd clean them up and post them over here. The endings are vague because I get bored with them before developing them properly, so you can decide for yourself what happens next.

-/-

Stan opened the door, expecting a tourist or someone from town or maybe one of the kids’ friends, and then shrieked when it turned out to be his older brother pounding on it.

“Shermie? Oh no!”

Shermie stood glaring at him. “Stan.”

“Uh- uh-” Stan panicked. He couldn’t let Shermie get a chance to count his fingers. “Uh- nonspecific excuse!”

And fled, but Shermie had been expecting this, and apparently ‘way more upper body strength than anyone over fifty had any right to’ ran in the family, because he tackled his brother and bore him to the floor. They struggled, briefly, but it was only a minute or so before Shermie had him pinned.

“Oh, no you don’t! I want some answers, Stanley!”

Stan, struggling against his brother’s weight, stilled. He stared up into Shermie’s eyes, all the anger and accusation and hurt reflected in them, and then looked away. He said nothing- what was he supposed to say? ‘I may have killed our brother so I stole his identity and faked my own death’?

“Look at me, Stanley!” Stan did, and was startled to see tears forming in his brother’s eyes, despite the angry look he was still getting. “I _mourned_ for you! I went to your _funeral_ and I watched them lower my _baby brother_ into that grave and I have spent _thirty years_ wishing I could have you back and this whole time you’ve been- what? Living it up? Why would you fake your own death? And what the _hell_ could you have done that was so damn bad you couldn’t tell your own family about it?”

Stan’s expression, previously a mix of guilt and regret, hardened. “What, you mean the family that turned me out like last week’s leftovers over one stupid mistake? That family? Gosh, Sherm, I wonder why I could have _possibly_ thought I couldn’t trust my _family_ with something like this.”

Shermie snorted. “I had nothing to do with what Pa did. I wasn’t even in the country at the time.”

“Yeah, well-” Stan sighed. “…Yeah, that’s fair. That’s fair.”

There was a long silence. Shermie had come right to Oregon from Piedmont the moment he recognized his (dead, buried) brother on Cash Wheel, and had not given himself a chance to stop and think about the implications or process the reality in front of him. Now that he had, it occurred to him that- well, that this was the brother he’d been speaking to sporadically over the years. The Ford impression was good, but now that he looked back through them with hindsight, that had definitely been Stan.

Which begged a new question.

“Stan,” he said quietly. “Where’s Ford?”

The way Stan refused to look at him when he asked broke his heart. Something had happened- something terrible and awful and horrible.

“I uh.” He licked nervously at his lips, swallowed heavily. “I don’t know.”

Shermie was about to ask for clarification when he heard a door open in another part of the house, and a voice called out, “Hey Mr. Pines! You around?”

From there he had about three seconds to realize that he still had Stan pinned to the floor, and that anyone who might drop by would not know him, before a red-headed teenager came through the door. There was another half-second between the two of them spotting each other before she’d grabbed an ax from somewhere out of sight and held it ready.

“Okay, pal, I don’t know who you are or what your beef with Stan is, but back off right now. I’m not afraid of you, and I know how to use this thing.”

There was something very _Stannish_ to her expression, something that put him in mind of his brother at that age, ready to fight everyone to protect what was his, and he couldn’t stop a fondness for this young woman welling in his chest. Whatever was going on, at least his brother had people who cared for him.

“It’s okay, Wendy,” Stan said. “This is my brother, Shermie. We were just horsing around, is all, but he was about to let me up.”

He gave Shermie a pointed look at that, but Shermie was already pulling himself to his feet and holding out a hand to help Stan up as well. The presence of this Wendy seemed to have flipped a switch in Stan, because he was grinning, and he threw an arm around Shermie’s shoulder.

“Would you believe this guy is still able to pin me?” he teased. “He’s pushing eighty and still got it! That’s a Pines for ya. Oh, this is Wendy, she’s my cashier in the gift shop.”

Shermie rolled his eyes. “It’s nice to meet you Wendy,” he said, reaching out to shake her hand, and added, "And I'm only sixty-four."

“Same to you, dude. So you’re Dipper and Mabel’s granddad, huh?”

“Yes. Speaking of which, where are my grandchildren?” And did they know which great-uncle they were staying with? How much had Stan even told them about their family? Come think of it, Shermie wasn’t even sure they knew they had two of them; he didn’t like talking about his late brother, and his own son was too young to really remember having two uncles.

“They’re off with Soos somewhere,” Stan said, and Shermie decided to let it slide for the moment that Stan didn’t even know where the kids he was supposed to be watching were even at. No doubt he trusted this ‘Soos’ to keep them safe. Besides, he had questions right now.

“Stan, we really need to talk.”

“Yeah, we do, but uh.” He glanced at Wendy. “Not right here?”

“Hey, if you want me to beat it, I will,” Wendy said. She was still holding the ax, but she twirled it around and holstered it behind her. “I can take a hint.”

-/-

Stan had meant to lie to Shermie, or only tell him part of the truth, but by the time Wendy left and they reached the kitchen, he realized he had no resolve to do so. Shermie was going to hate him once he knew- he’d probably take the kids home with him, and Stan would die all over again- hell, he’d probably take them home anyway, now he knew it was his crooked grifter of a con artist brother instead of the successful researcher turned businessman with like… twelve Ph.D’s that they were staying with. But Shermie was the only person in the world who knew who Stan really was, and remembered the real Stanford Pines, and, well, he just needed someone to know.

So Stan told him. Everything. He started with the postcard asking him to come, and he ended with opening the Mystery Shack and faking his own death.

It didn’t take as long as it should have. Stan felt like it was a long story, but then, he was the one living it, every day of his life for thirty years.

When he finished, Shermie was quiet. Stan said nothing more, waiting for him to react. Waiting for him to yell, or shout accusations, or go find the kids and take them home. Waiting to lose his other brother.

“And you’ve been living alone with that all this time,” Shermie finally said. His voice was hushed, incredulous. His eyes were wet. He’d always been the cryer in the family, their Shermie.

Stan shrugged. “I mean. I can’t just leave ‘im there. I gotta get ‘im back. I gotta bring ‘im home.”

Shermie nodded, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world- like Stan Pines sacrificing thirty years of his life to a lost cause for a man who hated him was a matter of course. Fish swim, birds fly, Stan Pines doesn’t know when to quit.

“I’m sorry,” Shermie said. Then he stood and moved around the table and dragged Stan up- this was it, this was where the anger came in, and Shermie had never been the guy to turn to punches but Stan had put his grandkids in danger so he didn’t really blame him- and then Shermie had wrapped him in a crushing embrace, rocking slightly. “I’m so sorry. You shouldn’t have been alone for this, for any of this. I should have recognized you. I’m sorry.”

-/-

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to see more like this or just chat, hit me up on Tumblr @grifalinas!


End file.
